Photography weekend – Part 1

The weather was fantastic this weekend and Cynthia was itching to shoot some pics with her new camera.
On top of that, I had just treated myself to the Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 Compact Super Telephoto Zoom Lens and was excited about taking it for a test run.

Cynthia and I headed downtown to poke around. We stopped first at “the boots” near Uptown Park because Cynthia had commented on my earlier post and thought it would be a good opportunity to play with her wide angle lens.

Boots!

That worked out pretty good because I had been dying to get a shot of this one particular building at Post Oak and 610. I drive this way most every day and have always appreciated the reflection of the high-rise condos in this one silver building.

Reflections

I had to walk a ways away to line it up and ended up standing in the middle of Post Oak to get the shot.
It’s OK, but seeing it in person is better.

From there we made our way downtown. We wandered around a bit and shot some pics of this and that.

Yar!

It was an altogether new experience for me having a shooting partner. Cynthia was able to help me when I needed to change lenses and vice-versa. This is great practice for our upcoming trip to Spain.

Tijuana Dreams

Guy Fantasy
Guy Fantasy

Buddy Llamas
Buddy Llamas

I made it by the Continental Club a few Fridays back to catch The Small Stars. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you will know they are one of my all time favorite bands.

Featuring my guitar hero, Landis Armstong (aka Richard Steele), they are a must see each and every time they come to Houston.

They were here this time in support of their new album “Tijuana Dreams.”

I’ve always contended that The Small Stars are an act best seen live, and I think that holds true. That being said, I was having a fairly lengthy and rambling conversation with Miles Zuniga (aka “Guy Fantasy”) and he was telling me of his desire to have the band be more than just a memorable stage act. He said their goal with the new album was to have the music stand on it’s own.

I ttook home a copy of “Tijuana Dreams” and I must say, it definitley stands on it’s own as a great listening experience. It’s been in my CD player for a two weeks now and I simply can’t get enough.

If you cruise by their web site there are some audio samples and their calendar. Check it out.

Click here to visit the gallery of pics from that last show.

The Harry Rags – Kinks tribute band


Chase Hamblin


Derek Dunivan

After leaving Notsuoh I headed over to the Continental Club. On the bill for the evening were Von Hindenburg, a Led Zepplin tribute band and another band called The Harry Rags, a Kinks tribute band.

I had seen Von Hindenburg before and was not overly enthused, but I was intrigued by The Harry Rags. As it turns out the two bands have some band members in common, most notably Steve Candaleri who drums for both bands and Derik Dunivan (Willie “punkdaddy” Dunican’s kid) who plays keyboard, guitar and sings for The Harry Rags and is the singer (aka Robert Plant) for Von Hindenburg.

I must say, I was rather impressed by the performance of The Harry Rags. They not only performed all the classics like “Lola” and “You Really Got Me” but they also dug deep into the Kinks repertoire and pulled out some rather obtuse songs like the one that obviously inspired the band name.

It was a great show and only at two points did I experience any distress.

The first twinge was brought on when I was discussing with a friend the fact that the members of this tribute band (with the possible exception of Steve Candelari) were not even born when these songs were written.

The second twinge was brought on when they started playing “Picture Book” and a young woman in the audience declared that they were playing that song from that cool HP commercial…

Best shot of the show is this one of Derek Dunivan:

Derek Dunivan
Click for full size!

Many more in the gallery

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